Work

Capital, Volume I

Das Kapital

Karl Marx·1867·German

About this text

Marx's analysis of capitalism as a system, beginning with the commodity and ending with primitive accumulation. The central argument: that profit comes not from exchange but from the unpaid portion of workers' labor: surplus value, wrung from time and embodied in things. The most influential book of the nineteenth century.

A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. So far as it is a value in use, there is nothing mysterious about it. But, so soon as it steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent.

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